Hundreds Make Meal for Homeless a Success

When 3,000 eaters sat down in Pasadena’s sun-drenched Central Park for Thanksgiving dinner Thursday, there were too many cooks to thank.

The cooks--hundreds of Southern Californians moved by the spirit of what’s probably the nation’s largest potluck meal--spent the morning over their stoves. They delivered platters to volunteers who served food and bused tables for a crowd of people--some scruffy, some well-groomed--who rarely get waited upon.

Every year, the Union Station Foundation, a Pasadena homeless shelter, attempts the impossible: mass-producing the feeling of Thanksgiving at Grandma’s house. It works because of people like Elaine Iverson, an Arcadia grandmother, who on Thursday cooked up a large batch of her special carrot dish (secret ingredient: oranges). Or Joe Moran, who recently moved to Pasadena from Seattle, and baked a ham. (Hey, he may be a bachelor but he can cook.) Or Joe Cockroft, a San Dimas caterer who rented a 26-foot truck to haul pots, pans and food-warming equipment to the park at Fair Oaks Avenue and Del Mar Boulevard.

Each, like Cockroft, had his own reason for helping. Seven years ago, Cockroft’s business was teetering so he got a second job delivering bread to restaurants in downtown San Bernardino. In the early morning hours, he saw dozens of homeless men and women curled up trying to sleep.

“My heart went out to them,” said Cockroft, 38. “I vowed I’d do something once I got back on my feet.”

Today, Cockroft’s business is flourishing and his holidays are devoted to helping the homeless. Across the state, thousands shared Cockroft’s sentiment, pitching in to help those less fortunate.

Union Station Foundation has hosted potluck dinners at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter for the past 24 years, inviting and cajoling those who can to contribute a platter of homemade or store-bought goodies, from entrees to side dishes. After several years of nightmarish paperwork trying to keep track of who was bringing what dish, the organizers gave up and simply urged everyone to bring what they could.

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“It’s totally magic,” said Frank B. Clark, director of volunteer programs. “It always works out.”

And just in case, cook Helen Renner of Pasadena--along with a dozen helpers--manned the kitchen at the shelter, several blocks from the park, awaiting orders dispatched by walkie-talkie. “They always holler for more gravy, more gravy,” said Renner, 72, who once worked as a counselor at a school for the handicapped.

For Renner, this was her fifth Thanksgiving there, a tradition she began after her husband died.

“Why should I be home alone?” said Renner, who now cooks regularly at Union Station, where residents call her Mom or Grandma.

(Despite her contagious laugh and warm smile, Renner is no pushover. Didn’t eat your vegetables? She’ll remind you how much time she spent making them. Abusive language? “Your mouth is too precious, too beautiful for that nasty word.”)

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Renner maneuvered purposefully in the kitchen Thursday morning, hovering over the 45-gallon pot of gravy on the stove and peeking at turkey breasts in the oven.

“I got so excited about coming here to make everything work out--I woke up in the middle of the night,” Renner said. “I took a bath at 3 a.m. to relax, but I still couldn’t go back to sleep--thinking about all those people we would be feeding today.”

Renner made everyone feel welcome in her kitchen. Almost instantly, she assigned posts to Mary and Alastair Biggart, a middle-aged couple here from Dover, England. Mary Biggart was appointed Renner’s deputy chef; her husband Alastair, a civil engineer working on the Metro Red Line, became Renner’s chief turkey carver.

Some of Thursday’s volunteers, like the Biggarts, drove only a few miles to attend the potluck dinner. But Erik Borncamp flew in from Chicago, where he goes to medical school, so he could help out at the annual event.

“It’s important to me to give my time and energy,” said Borncamp, 28, an Altadena native. “There are always people saying they will give money or do something next year. I wanted to do something now.”

Ten years ago, Borncamp assisted in his first potluck dinner. He showed up because of a nagging belief that the holidays had taken on a commercial and fake ring. So he spent his day fetching cartons of napkins, finding caches of plastic forks when supplies ran low, and making sure that everyone who wanted a meal was provided one.

By the end of that day, exhausted and yet content, he turned to Clark, who coordinated the volunteers’ efforts, and said, “This is what it’s all about.”

Borncamp has been coming back ever since.

When Borncamp arrived at Union Station Foundation Wednesday morning to help with preparations, he and Clark exchanged brotherly hugs as the older man chided him for gaining weight.

But this was no time to catch up. The phones rang almost constantly with hundreds of people asking directions to the park so they could get a free meal or drop off food.

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Sitting in his cluttered office, Clark had a rough list. The 3,000 plates and cups were ready. He needed more adhesive name labels. He had to find the signs and felt-tip pens. Where was the banner? Could one of the volunteers get a camera and film ready for the festivities?

“It’s almost like doing an athletic event--it takes that much energy,” Clark said.

Before Clark could continue, the phone rang again. “You’re coming to the dinner?” he asked. “I love you.”

Across town, Bonnie Villalobos had her own checklist to go over. Villalobos and her husband Ruben volunteered to cook nine turkeys for Clark.

Early Thursday morning, the couple unlocked the Masonic Lodge’s kitchen where Ruben is a member. There, with the help of another couple, they slid the turkeys into the commercial ovens and set about preparing stuffing.

“We’ve got it down to a science,” said Bonnie Villalobos, 55, a retired secretary for the Pasadena Police Department who has cooked several turkeys for the last five years and celebrated her family’s own Thanksgiving last Sunday.

Joe Moran, 30, a bank loan compliance officer, considered cooking a turkey but he’d never cooked one before. So Thursday morning, Moran awoke at 7 a.m. By 7:30, his 8-pound honey-baked ham was in the oven.

Moran plans to fly home to Seattle to be with his family for Christmas but he intended to spend his Thanksgiving with strangers.

“We talk a lot about the need to reduce the size of government, and to get people on their feet,” said Moran. “If that’s going to mean anything, the average citizen has to pitch in.”

Just before noon Thursday, amid the paper-clothed park tables, volunteers lifted the lids on the hot trays, peeled the tin foil off the platters, and began serving Thanksgiving dinner to those who’d lost homes, jobs or hope.

Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at picnic tables, diners dug into plates heaped with piping hot turkey, corn bread stuffing and candied yams. Others spread quilts on the grass and ate.

Jennie Supawong, a Thai American stockbroker from Pasadena, brought her 11-year-old daughter, Jan, to help her serve the meal. For the girl, the day was unlike most holidays that she usually spends at home with her family.

“You see all those people,” she said, “and realize how lucky you are.”